


Bitter

by TheNewBohemianQ



Series: Five senses [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Making Out, Stress, pre-stablished klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 08:58:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14951600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNewBohemianQ/pseuds/TheNewBohemianQ
Summary: The morning after Keith's first night of rut, Lance wakes up not remembering anything. At the beginning, they brush it off as something due to stress, but then things start getting more and more out of control until Lance reaches his breaking point.Maybe someone will find an explanation to what has been happening ever since the incident with that monster.





	Bitter

**Author's Note:**

> This part is shorter than the others because there's no smut, just a small sequence of events that will help develop things better in part 4.  
> Also, in this part there is no easter egg from Sweet. You'll have to wait for the next one.

Lance’s brain came to slowly. He could almost hear the beeping sounds every time another function of his body activated itself. Hearing? Check. Smell? Check. Sight? He opened his eyes to come face to face with Keith drooling on his white-silk pillowcase. Check. 

A dull ache started to make itself known all over his body, and Lance groaned as he tried to stretch his muscles, accidentally waking up his boyfriend. Lance met violet eyes with little slashes of gold intertwined in them, and Keith gave him a slightly fanged smile.

“Hey there, superstar,” he said with his voice all rough and croaky from sleep as he brushed a clawed thumb over Lance’s cheek. “How you feeling?”

Lance sighed, burying his nose on Keith’s slightly lilac neck. “Kind of sore,” he answered, frowning when he heard Keith chuckle.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, last night was kind of hard on you,” his boyfriend said. Lance held himself up with his right arm, looking down at Keith with a confused frown that the red paladin misunderstood by annoyance, so he raised up his hands in sign of surrender and said: “Not that I think you can’t take it or anything.”

Lance frowned harder. “What are you talking about, Keith?” he asked, slowly sitting up and wincing at the slight pain that shot up through his spine. Keith just got comfortable in the new space available, resting his head on top of his joined hands so that he could show off his chest.

“Well, you know. Sex during my ruts is usually taxing for you.”

“Rut?” Lance asked, looking up at the ceiling as he checked his mental calendar. “Aren’t you due in like a week?”

Now it was Keith who was frowning. “Yeah, I was. But it suddenly started earlier last night.”

“Wait, what?” Lance’s mind started reeling as he put all the elements together. Keith, lying naked on Lance’s bed, Lance was naked himself, his ass hurt and Keith said his rut had started earlier. “¿Qué mierda?” He shot up from the bed and run to his private bathroom, face paling when he saw himself in the mirror.

His whole body was filled with scratches, bruises and bite marks, perfect evidence that was always left behind when Keith and he had more than twenty minutes to have sex. His neck, his shoulders… Hips, chest, ass, back, thighs… Everything had been mapped out by Keith.

His heart sank down and left a void between his lungs as he tried to think about the last day.

“Lance?” Keith called as he walked in the bathroom.

He remembered practice; Allura had complimented him on his quickly improving broad-sword skills. Then they had all gone to their bedrooms; right, he had talked with Keith about why they weren’t having sex and his nearing rut. They had dinner and Lance left early to get ready.

He looked around and discovered that, effectively, there was a tube of lube next to the shower and Keith’s favourite set of lingerie was laid out on top of the counter. The mouthwash was uncapped and his favourite sensual playlist was shining on the hologram on the wall, paused.

“Baby, are you okay?” Keith asked, taking Lance’s shaking hand and forcing him to look at him by grabbing his chin. “Talk to me, Lance.”

Lance started shaking his head before answering. All the words he wanted to say were throwing themselves up against his mouth trying to get out, so it was kind of difficult to talk and make sense at the same time. “I can’t…” he started, but a shuddering breath cut him in half. He wet his lips and blinked up at Keith’s eyes. “I can’t remember last night.”

Keith frowned harder. “What?”

“I. Can’t. Remember. Last. Night,” Lance repeated, punctuating each word. 

Keith’s eyes traveled all over his face, trying to catch any sign that Lance was playing some sort of twisted prank on him. “What’s the last thing you can remember?”

“I remember rushing here after dinner, getting out of the shower… And that’s it.”

Keith’s right hand stopped gripping his chin and cupped Lance’s face. “You don’t remember me coming here yesterday?” Lance shook his head. “Baby, did you drink something? Took any pills?”

Lance frowned and pushed away from Keith. “What? No?”

Silence fell upon them as they both tried to make sense out of this situation. Somehow, silence made Lance feel even worse; it kind of reminded him of the silence his mind showcasted when he tried to recall last night’s events. He was the first one to break that silence with a distressed whimper as he covered his face with his hands. Keith quickly neared him to hug him.

“Maybe you don’t remember because I literally fucked you blank,” Keith said, tone indicating that he could be both serious and joking. “I mean, my rut somehow started earlier and we hadn’t touched each other for like a week. I was ridiculously pent up. And we went at it like four times…”

“FOUR TIMES?”

“Yeah… You were really out of it last night now that I think of it,” Keith murmured, nuzzling his neck and getting on his tiptoes to kiss Lance’s forehead before smiling up at him. “Don’t worry baby, I’m sure we’ll figure it out. I think stress can mess with your memory.”

“Yeah, it can,” Lance nodded, face dropping down as he slowly felt his soul come back to his body.

“And we’ve all been stressed lately. Remember that one time I sleep walked to the training deck and started to gladiator and it kicked my ass?” Lance snorted and Keith practically beamed at seeing that he was slowly getting better. “Maybe you just need to rest. Come back to bed, okay? We have these three days off anyways.”

Lance let himself be dragged to the bed and let his boyfriend shower him in attention. They cuddled for like an hour before Keith started rubbing patterns on his skin, making Lance sigh. He started peppering kisses, then nips, and every time he went a step further he would look up at Lance for approval, letting out a pleased purr when he gave him permission to keep going.

# . . .

Lance was relieved when he remembered every last detail of the following three days. Keith had been specially pending of him during this rut, which meant that all the fucking had been as lovely and sweet as their first time, just with Keith whimpering and whining to Lance so that he would let him knot him. Feeling once again that he had the control of the situation had lightened up Lance’s mood and made him forget about the whole “I have memory issues” thing.

But he would soon remember.

Little by little, more issues started appearing, even if they were hard to notice. By the third week after Keith’s rut, everyone had realized something was up. Lance would barely communicate with them, he was always cranky and he got hurt a lot more during training and missions. Keith, being closer to him, noticed even more issues.

Lance started to have night terrors. He would suddenly wake up yelling and/or crying in the middle of the night, startling Keith awake, which always ended in a panicking Lance having to try to calm a growling and knife-holding Keith down. 

After this went on for a week, Lance asked Keith to start sleeping on their own. It was not like they always slept together, but they were quite used to it, so it didn’t sit well on Keith, but the red paladin knew his boyfriend was going through something and that he needed some space, even if he refused to explain why.

Keith didn’t understand what was happening, and he wouldn’t understand until Lance told him what was going on. He was almost convinced that Lance had finally remembered something and refused to talk about it because maybe it was too embarrassing. 

He was so deep in thought that he didn’t hear Hunk calling him until the third time he did.

“Keith!”

“Yes, yes, I’m awake,” he said, wanting to hit himself. Of course he was awake, this was not high school, he was having dinner with his teammates and they could see that he wasn’t sleeping.

“We were talking about Lance,” Shiro quickly said, knowing that Keith probably had tuned off the second Hunk had given him his food. Allura’s eyes flickered to the sit between Hunk and himself with a shade of worry, highlighting Lance’s absence.

“He was really reckless on today’s mission. We’re afraid that this might be the last time that he makes a move like that to come out alive.” Coran was awkwardly fumbling with his gloves, anxiety easy to spot like very few other times. 

He sighed, resting his head on his palm. “I know. I’ve tried to talk to him, but it’s like he doesn’t even want to see me.” The stunned silence let him know that the rest of the team thought things were perfectly okay between them, which couldn’t be more untrue. “A week ago or so he cut me off, we barely exchange words now. We sleep in separate bedrooms and everything.”

Pidge looked down at her plate before mumbling out “Do you think it has something to do with what happened?”

Everyone turned to look at him and their faces fell when Keith nodded

“I’m going to talk to him anyways. After dinner I’ll corner him and won’t let him go until he tells me what’s wrong.”

That was easier said than done.

First, he had to find Lance. Keith raided the spots his boyfriend frequented and even those he didn’t but he was known to hang around from time to time. The lounge, the planetarium, the spa, the library, his room… Nowhere to be seen.

He happened to go by the training deck by chance, and if it weren’t because he heard loud cursing in Spanish, he wouldn’t have stopped.

The doors opened and Keith entered just in time to see Lance being thrown across the room and falling in an awful position. “END TRAINING SEQUENCE!”

Lance lifted his head and looked for him. He seemed dazed. “Keith?”

Keith ran towards him and helped him sit up. There were fresh wounds covering his face, and he only noticed the stomach wound had reopened when he put a hand on Lance’s waist and his fingers came out damp with blood. He was feverish and a sheen of sweat covering his skin made him look even sicker than he looked lately, with all the bruises, the paleness and the dark bags under his eyes.

“Lance, what the hell are you doing? You should be in a healing pod, or resting at least.”

“I don’t want to," he groaned as he incorporated, hissing when Keith grabbed his chin to get a better look at the blooming bruises.

“And I don’t care you don’t want to. You’re losing blood.”

“It’s just a little bit. I checked already.”

Keith grabbed Lance’s head with both hands, staining the skin (that lately was paler and less healthy than it used to be) with blood. “I’m taking you to the infirmary and I’m patching you up, like it or not.”

Lance didn’t like it, but he still went willingly, only that willingly didn't mean in a good mood; Keith was sure that if they weren't boyfriends, they would be in the middle of a fist fight by now. Lucky him, because he didn't want to fight Lance like this. They ended up with Lace lying on one of the nursery beds and pouting while Keith cleaned him up and closed his wound again, changing the bandages after.

It was awful. Keith wasn’t used to his awkward and angry silence between them. There were no jokes or comments, no whistling or humming of a melody, no fingers tapping. Lance had just watched the weird shadows that Keith's fingers cast over his skin thanks to the dim and weirdly placed lighting of the room.

Keith let down the patch of bandages on a counter with a loud thud and turned with his arms crossed to look at Lance, who slowly sat up, knowing that a fight was coming.

“Why won’t you go to the healing pods?”

Lance shrugged, nailing his eyes on a very interesting spot on the floor. “Because I don’t want to.”

“Lance.”

“Seriously, Keith. I don’t want to go. I hate the pods.”

“Since when?” Keith yelled, throwing his arms up to the ceiling and getting closer to the bed. Lance shrugged, and Keith stomped towards him, standing directly into his personal space. “Lance, you are acting like a dick and putting yourself in danger all the time.”

Silence.

Keith put his hands on each side of Lance and let his weight rest into the bed as he let his head hang low. “What is happening to us, Lance?” He looked up and locked eyes with Lance. A wave of relief washed over him when he saw that Lance looked as lost as he felt. "Even at the beginning... We were never like this. If something bothered us we talked about it, remember?" Lance nodded. "Is it something that's going on with the team, or is it about me?" Lance didn't answer, but he did look away again, making Keith's heart sink in his chest. "You don't want to be with me anymore, do you? Did I do something wrong?"

Ever so slowly, Lance raised his right hand to cup Keith’s jaw, slender fingers moving softly over his skin, tracing the lilac mark that went from his cheek down to his collarbone. That mark was the only thing that showed his Galra heritage at all times; maybe it faded or became darker, but it was always there, no matter his form. Lance had taken the habit of tracing it absentmindedly all the time.

Keith let out a short breath, not wanting to admit that he had gasped from a touch like that, but it was the first that Lance touched or looked at him like this in a whole week. It had been soul-wrecking. The hole that had been eating its way through his chest started to retreat as Lance slowly pulled him in by his chin and pecked him softly on the lips.

Lance kissed him again and again and again, always slow and gentle. He didn’t say a word, but he slowly maneuvered Keith on top of the bed with him. He kissed him like that until Keith could taste his own salty tears. Lance let him break away to clean away the tears, always looking at him with sadness in his eyes. 

“I just want to help you,” Keith murmured in a raspy voice. “I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, Lance.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Lance admitted, dropping his gaze to the immaculate white sheets. “There’s something going on with me, and not knowing scares me.” Now he was crying too, but it was Keith the one to clean away his tears, kissing him again, this time interlocking their lips.

They broke away and Keith stayed millimeters away, breathing Lance’s air. “You have to open up about it so that we can figure it out. Together. Okay?” They both started nodding, Keith lifting his right hand to cradle Lance’s jaw. “I love you. Don’t forget that.”

“I love you so much,” Lance sniffed, before gifting Keith a small smile and snaking his hand through inky black hair to pull him in to share another kiss. “I’ve. Missed you. So much,” he said between kisses as they grew in intensity.

“It’s awful sleeping without you,” Keith confessed as he pushed Lance down onto the bed, mindful of Lance’s wounds, and started caressing his side, his heart jumping when his hands met the hot and soft skin they knew so well.

Lance started sucking small bruises on Keith’s collarbone, slowly making his way up with little pecks and licks, until his lips were on top of Keith’s ear to whisper “Stay with me” as he pressed Keith’s body closer to his.

Keith couldn’t remember the last time that they had been all over each other like this. It wasn’t because they were horny or anything like that. It was almost as if their bodies missed each other and they needed to slowly take it all in again, retracing known paths with the tips of their fingers, marking up favorite places where old bruises and bites had faded, tasting the other again as if they were afraid to forget.

It wasn’t the scorching heat that they were used to, it was the lazy warmth a few candles would give. Even the bites and the hair pulling was slow and soft. Where they usually chased pleasure, they were chasing the other.

Keith was so lost in this that he didn’t taste the few drops of blood that managed to sneak into his mouth until he saw Lance.

Having put himself on top of his boyfriend, Lance rose to sit on Keith’s lap, starting to caress his abs, where more blood was dripping. 

“Keith,” he started, brow furrowed in confusion, not having noticed how he was bleeding from his nose heavily. He blinked dazedly and his eyes crossed. “I don’t feel so good,” Lance slurred before his eyes rolled back and he fell to the left, Keith barely able to catch his wrist as the rest of Lance’s unconscious body hit the floor. 

“LANCE?!”

# . . .

He knew he should be looking at Pidge, listening to her, not putting all his attention on the sleeping Lance (Oh, God, he was praying for Lance to just be sleeping). He couldn’t avoid it.

“Keith,” Pidge called for the fifth time, forcibly moving his eyes away from Lance and towards him. “I know it’s hard, but I need you to listen to me.”

He nodded.

“Lance suffered a cerebrovascular accident. One of the veins in his brain bursted.”

There was no need to explain it to him; Keith was more acquainted with this kind of thing more than he would like.

“Do you think he’ll make it out? Without sequels?” he asked, eyes returning back to his boyfriend’s pale face, the blue-tinted glass of the healing pod making him look a sickish green.

“This kind of things happen to Alteans with regularity. If it’s a degree hotter than normal, veins start popping. It used to be a big problem for us, so we made sure that the healing pods could fix it in a matter of days,” Coran explained with an awkward smile and patting him lightly on the shoulder.

“What matters here is why this happened,” Hunk stated, popping open a window on the healing pod’s screen. “There are many things wrong with Lance, and they’re probably the reason why he suffered this.”

“What do you mean?” Shiro asked, voice worried.

“Thanks to Lance’s regular visits to the healing pods lately, we have an almost day today record of his health. The first thing we noticed was how his blood-pressure started increasing regularly, to the point where a few days ago it reached the status of dangerous.” Keith looked at Pidge with his brow furrowed. “Yeah, weird.”

“But we know why it happened. Well, we have a theory,” Hunk said, pointing at the screen. “The flow of multiple hormones has been practically blocked. Oxytocin is practically non-existent, so he can’t release endorphins. And, on top of that, many stress hormones are flowing like a river.”

“We also found new hormones that don’t exist in humans, and they have the same components we found in both the flowers and the chunk of the tentacle that Shiro off from the monster,” Hunk added.

“So you think that Lance is like this because something that monster did to him?” Shiro asked. Keith couldn’t speak, he was too busy mulling over the fact that maybe Altean and human brains were different, so they sustained this type of damage differently.

“Yes. We believe it’s a mechanism the monster has in case the victim escapes. The hormones it introduces become vital for the release of original hormones, so if the victim goes a long time without exposure, it starts dying.”

“Lance is going to die?” Coran was quick to squeeze Keith’s shoulder to calm him down.

“Don’t worry, Keith. Hunk and I are sure that we can create hormone supplements based on the flowers we picked up, and we also know where to get more from, so it’s not like we will run out of them. Lance is going to be okay.”

Keith really wanted to doubt that. The last time someone had a stroke and he was told that everything was going to be okay, his father died. But he knew these people. It wasn’t the first time one of them was inside one of the healing pods fighting for their lives, and Keith knew his teammates’ expressions. If there was the smallest chance that Lance wouldn’t make it, their faces would seem grey from their gloomy expressions. Now, even after being pulled out from bed to help him treat Lance, they looked more awake and happy than ever.

“Now that we know what’s wrong, we know how to treat it, so things will improve from now on,” Hunk nodded.

# . . .

Altean brains were different from human brains, they ended up learning.

Allura had said than in a few days it should be ready. Two weeks had gone by, and Lance was still in there, not moving a muscle. Keith was beyond worried and had gone from short prayers to any deity he could think of to straight up sobbing every night. It was the end. The small heaven he had found in Lance was going to die along with him.

He was sitting next to the healing pod, thinking of how they couldn’t even bury him if he died, when the pod beeped, and the glass slid open to let a wobbly Lance fall out. Keith was barely able to hold him by the waist to stop him from crashing face first onto the floor.

“Keith? What happened?” Lance’s voice croaky. His throat surely was as rough as sandpaper after two weeks of not drinking a drop of water.

Keith spun his boyfriend around in his arms so that he was facing him and grabbed him by the neck to kiss him soulfully, not minding the bad breath, before breaking apart to say “Don’t ever do that to me again, Lance. If you die, I’m going with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not very happy with how this part turned out, but well, I hadn't posted ina long time and I wanted to post something.  
> Remember that if you wan't to comment further or talk to me or ask stuff, you can always go to my Tumblr blog: thenewbohemianq.
> 
> Lots of Love!!


End file.
